Music startups strike back, an earnings deluge, and the state of cloud growth

Top News

• Suno, Udio repsond to music lawsuit: In the wake of suits from the RIAA, AI music generation startups Suno and Udio have responded to complaints about training their models on copyright-protected tunes. Unsurprisingly, the startups think that their work is protected by fair use rules. The training data v. AI company argument is far from over, and at this point we don’t know if most of the complaints will yield more revenue-share agreements than completed legal disputes.

• A deluge of earnings: Shares of Intel are tanking this week after the chip giant announced results and guidance that missed street expectations. But while big names like Intel and Amazon (more here from TWiST) failed to spark investor joy, DoorDash, Crowdstrike and others managed to (more from TWiST). Alex has a rundown of even more numbers if you need a catch-up.

• $80B: With Big Tech earnings behind us, we’re learning a lot about how much companies are spending in the cloud. The answer in the second quarter? More than $80 billion, per Synergy Research. That figure is up more than $14 billion, or about 22%, since last year. Apart from the biggest names, Ron Miller reports in TechCrunch that “Oracle nudged up to 3%, passing IBM and tying Salesforce for fifth place overall.”

TWiST500

Closing out our coverage of the TWiST500 this week, we have a treat coming your way very soon. To dig more deeply into the private-market companies that we’ve selected for the TWiST500, we’re having some of their founders swing by the podcast for an interview.

The first trio of those chats is scheduled for next week, so stick close to your podcast feed to hear from TollBit, Huntress, and Cyera. This Week In Startups won’t be able to interview every company on the list, but we’ll bring you as many founders as we can as quickly as possible.

Finally, one more call for episode 2,000 memories and call-outs. If you have a favorite moment from episode 1,001 all the way to the most recent show, let us know ([email protected], or [email protected]).

To everyone who has sent in their favorite clips or interviews, thank you. — Alex

p.s. I am off next week, meaning that the brilliant Bianca from the investment team will lead this newsletter next week. She’s the best!

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This Week in Startups

E1987: On the latest episode of Liquidity Pod, Dana Johns (Head of Private Equity at New Jersey Division of Investment) and Tom Loverro (General Partner at IVP) joined David Weisburd (10X Capital) and Jason Calacanis (LAUNCH) to chat through the secondary markets, venture leverage in dealmaking today, and the IPO window.

E1986: Jason sat down with WEKA CEO Liran Zvibel and Valor’s Antonio Gracias to dig into what the data platform startup is up to and why Gracias joined its board after its latest funding round. The conversation is a must-listen if you want to learn more about modern data management techniques. To close, the latest JCal winner Ramsey Schaffer, CEO of Uptrends AI came on to share what his startup is building.

E1985: Etsy CEO Josh Silverman swung by the podcast to talk about how his company is reacting to the AI era. Etsy is best known for its hand-crafted goods that small creators sell. Jason and Silverman dug into how to build and maintain a unique marketplace, operate a company in a remote-friendly world, and how organic traffic flows are changing today.

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The TWiST500 newsletter is the new, updated, and improved TWiST Ticker.